I Offended You ...My Response & What To Do When You Offend People
[0:00:00] So, I received a message the other day from
a gentleman saying that he is offended by a post I’ve put over at Real Men Real Style.
He is saying that it’s racist that it’s stereotypical.
“It’s gross.
It’s racist.”
And that I am unfit to run a men’s style blog and he’s going to report me to the
Better Business Bureau unless I alter or take down that post.
So, what should I do?
Gentlemen, in today’s video, what to do when you offended people.
[Music] Tip number one.
Tell them to go [bleep sound] themselves.
No, I know that’s what we want to do, I want to do it sometimes, but, guys, no, kill
them with kindness.
And, the way I do this is I just simply reach out treat them with great respect and actually
try to figure out first off did they actually read the post.
Now, the post in particular that this gentleman is upset about is construction of a black
man’s wardrobe.
This has over three thousand shares on Pinterest, thousands of shares on Facebook, it does really
well and it was written by a gentleman named Letroy Woods.
He runs the blog, Man Becomes Style and he’s of African-American descent.
And he’s the one that came up with the title, thought it was a great post, wanted to talk
about how his complexion plays into his clothing choices and all those other details like that.
I couldn’t see why this gentleman was really offended unless he didn’t read the article.
He didn’t get into it.
And that happens all the time.
People go off a headline, people go off an image, and they just simply send something
out saying it is offending them when they actually don’t even understand the point
that the author is trying to actually put out there.
Tip number two.
And this is especially useful if you didn’t like my tip number one and that’s simply
to ignore them.
You are going to offend people pretty much with anything you do in life that matters.
If you’re going to stand for something, if you’re going to state your beliefs, if
you’re going to build something of value, you are going to offend somebody for some
reason and you just can’t stop this.
So, for a lot of people, they just completely ignore this.
They don’t bother with it, they don’t respond, and they just let the haters hate
and they keep moving forward.
Tip number three.
Evaluate your position.
Are you in the wrong?
Ask yourself that question, am I actually in the wrong here?
You want to evaluate look closely at your own position.
Now, this assumes that you’re not going to ignore the person and that maybe you’ve
already opened up to these channels of communication, try to understand their point of view looking
at what you are doing.
And really strengthens your own position when you can question him, when you actually, look,
okay, this person is saying this, I’m trying to understand their logic, I’m trying to
understand their reasoning and then I’m going through and reevaluating my own position.
Tip four.
Take responsibility for your mistake or hold your ground if you’re in the right.
So, this comes after you’ve evaluated your situation.
And if you realized, okay, I can see actually why they’re offended, didn’t actually
think it would have any impact on this person or this group, okay, I’m going to go ahead
and retract this.
I’m going to apologize.
But, if you find I’m actually in the right, there is no reason for them to be offended,
you realized this is worth fighting for because that’s what it may actually come to.
And you need to resolve you need to know, hey, that this could cost me even though I’m
in the right maybe resources, it could actually cost you a lot of time.
It may be something that it affects or tarnishes what people think is your reputation.
But remember, your reputation is a shadow of your character.
Your character is who you are and what you stand for.
And if you would examine that, you know you’re in the right, then there’s nothing wrong
with fighting for what you believe in.
Tip number five.
Communicate effectively.
What we’re looking for here is empathy.
For you guys not just to logically understand each other, but also to emotionally feel why
the person on the other side is so offended, why they’re so upset.
And for you guys to be able to go back and forth maybe you’re going to agree to disagree,
but you’ve actually communicated and hopefully in private.
Now, we see a lot of these public spats where people are going back and forth and they’re
doing it on Twitter, they’re doing it a public forum, they’re doing it where other
people can observe.
It’s a big communication mistake because people don’t want to look stupid in front
of other people.
They don’t want to look like they’ve made a mistake and so, they’re not going to retract.
But, if you can have these conversations in private behind closed doors, you’re going
to find people are much more open to actually listening and actually hearing what you have
to say.
It’s very difficult to make sure that someone actually understands you, but what you can
do is you can be very clear and you can be the one that understands them.
I find if I can repeat back to that person and say it in a way that they agree that,
yeah, it sounds like you get what I’m saying that you understand, then that actually disarms
a lot of people.
They’re like, oh, this person gets my point and, again, even if we walk away, we agree
to disagree, then it’s something at least a mutual respect is there.
[0:05:00] All right, gents, now it’s your turn.
I want to hear from you guys down in the comments.
What do you do when somebody offends you?
What if someone would have tell you, oh, you offended me, would you say get out of my face
snowflake or you’re going to actually talk with them figure out what’s going on?
I know we’ve got a wide variety of opinions and we live in world in which it seems people
get offended a lot.
Now, I would advise you if you’re offended by a lot of things to develop thicker skin
to realize that the world is not always going to cater to you, but you know that’s just
me and my background and I’m kind of more of the whole tough love kind of approach.
But, guys, I want to learn from you, I want to hear from you guys down in the comments,
please let me know what could I have done to make this video better?
So, gentlemen, take care.
I appreciate you.
I appreciate everything we built here at Real Men Real Style.
And I will see you in the next video.
[0:05:46] End of Audio